EXPLAINER: Minneapolis Policing Budget

Mayor Jacob Frey’s proposed 2027-28 budget allocates $246.8 million to the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) in 2027 alone — more than the combined budgets of the Fire, Public Works, and Health departments. Of every $1,000 in 2027 property taxes, about $223 goes to policing.

As the city faces proposed property tax increases amounting to 11.3 percent — alongside cuts to public services, park hours, and municipal positions — public debate has intensified over funding priorities and fiscal oversight.

This Explainer about the Minneapolis Policing Budget is part of a series designed to help people understand how the government — and the people we elect to it — serve the common good with the decisions they make about policy and funding priorities that impact the interconnected whole.

Meredith Fox (submitted photo)

“A budget is a moral document.”

Meredith Fox, founder and CEO of Portage Partners Consulting, got connected during Operation Metro Surge to Ward 11 Allied Voices for Equity (WEAVE), a group of Ward 11 residents organizing to advance progressive policies.

One of her early efforts with WEAVE was to create a petition related to a vote for the allocation of $6 million to purchase land in Ward 11 for the proposed $38 million Community Safety Training and Wellness Center, dubbed “Popo Palace” by Fox and others. Over one weekend, Fox collected almost 400 signatures from Ward 11 neighbors, including many parents during a soccer game at Washburn High School. Fox noted that nearly everyone she talked to was willing to sign the petition.

“When I started offering numbers in the context of everything else that’s going on in our city, people are uniformly appalled at the numbers and about what this looks like,” Fox says.

Seeing the numbers related to the Community Training and Wellness center caused Fox to do a deep dive into the budget. She wrote a resident’s guide to the Mayor’s 2027 Recommended Budget with her findings.

“I always had a sense that [the police budget] is a lot of money, but that was the moment where I actually started to see the numbers and felt extra outraged and motivated to dig into it and to share that information with more people,” Fox says.

While MPD’s budget is increasing, other budgets — like that of the parks department — are taking a hit. Fox says, “It’s crowding out things that actually keep us safe and that people want.”

The Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR) program, which Fox notes as a program that increases safety, has maintained flat funding of $5.9 million despite call volumes more than doubling since the program’s launch in 2021. 

In 2027, the city is transitioning its contract from Canopy Roots, the Minneapolis-based, Black-owned firm that has run BCR since 2021, to Arizona-based nonprofit Community Bridges Inc., while shifting its focus toward broader livability issues like nuisance and trespass calls. 

In the city’s request for proposals for new organizations to head this program, the city outlined the goal of expanding the program to a mobile crisis response model, which would send responders to a wider range of calls, including calls involving “livability” issues, and focus more on long-term stabilization of people in crisis. It would also deploy crisis responders to city fire stations. 

In Canopy Roots’ statement regarding the transition, they said, “While the City’s procurement decision marks a significant transition for Canopy Roots, it does not change what this team accomplished or the importance of the model we helped build. We remain committed to serving Minneapolis residents with care through the end of our current contract and to supporting continuity for the people who rely on this service.”

BCR today only takes calls the City’s screening has cleared as mental health. The BCR has no budget line of its own and is instead listed as a contract inside the Fire Department’s Training and Recruitment division. The 2027 budget adds $3.4 million in Fire overtime and nothing for the crisis program housed in the same department.

At its core, Fox says, “A budget is a moral document.” What is or isn’t funded shows the administration’s priorities.

from graphic in a Minneapolis police budget report prepared by Meredith Fox

The Numbers

Under the mayor’s proposed budget, property tax bills are set to rise by 11.3 percent — an increase of approximately $409 per year for a median-value home — even as the City cuts around 100 municipal positions, shrinks public services, and reduces park operating hours. Mayor Frey maintains that this spending is necessary to support an understaffed police department, but people like Fox says it raises questions about fiscal oversight.

According to an MPR report, the $2.3 billion to $2.6 billion budget addresses a $60+ million shortfall caused by employee costs, police overtime, and a 35 percent drop in downtown commercial real estate values. The Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging department will become part of the city’s human resources department, among other consolidations.

For 2027, the proposed allocation for the Minneapolis Police Department stands at $246.8 million. This accounts for a third of the City’s entire general fund and exceeds the combined budgets of the Fire, Public Works, and Health departments. Notably, this figure does not include the substantial General Fund costs arising from police misconduct settlements and officer post-traumatic stress disorder claims.

From a budget overview prepared by Meredith Fox

Overtime costs remain a significant factor. During just a few weeks of Operation Metro Surge, MPD spent $10 million on overtime and standby pay. MPD’s reconciled overtime for January 8 to 11 alone is $1.92 million — the entire 2026 overtime allocation was $2.265 million.

The mayor’s recommended budget adds $13.1 million in police overtime for 2027 alone — an amount equivalent to what it would cost to double funding for the Behavioral Crisis Response program and the shooting task force while fully restoring support for violence prevention, youth curfew initiatives, and the Health Department.

As a result of these expenditures, the City’s General Fund is forecast to fall more than $22 million below its required reserve level this year. This marks the first drawdown on emergency reserves in a decade and poses a serious threat to the City’s credit and bond ratings.

from graphic in a Minneapolis police budget report prepared by Meredith Fox

Political Viewpoints

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey justifies the budget as a necessity for public safety, largely pointing to overtime hours as the cause of the increased budget. “These are really not optional decisions when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it,” Frey said to MPR in early August. “If we don’t approve these overtime hours, we’re not able to do the basic work that the city demands.”

In a guest column for the Star Tribune, Frey outlined his position further:

“Calls for service haven’t slowed down. Emergencies are more frequent. Investigations can’t stop. Until we rebuild the department, overtime is part of how we meet those responsibilities. What is fair is to expect that we both work to find efficiencies with overtime use and more transparently budget for the real cost. In this budget, we are doing both.

I’ve directed the Minneapolis Police Department to review all overtime hours currently being posted and to create a prioritization strategy for those shifts. We must ensure that all overtime shifts are going to our top priorities like meeting staffing minimums throughout the city, responding to 911 calls and solving crimes.

Overtime is not a long-term strategy. Building back the department is. With applications to become a police officer up over 200 percent and the most diverse police department in history, we are making good progress.”

At a mayoral candidates debate in 2025, Minnesota Senate member Omar Fateh criticized the tens of millions of dollars that have gone to police misconduct settlements. “That’s tens of millions of dollars that can go toward our youth, our seniors. Making our city more affordable, small business grants. If we just do the right thing and hold our police force accountable, and have a public safety system that works for all of us, we don’t have to waste that much money,” he said. 

What Happens Next?

During the city council meeting on September 29, the Minneapolis City Council questioned newly named Police Chief Bill Peterson (announced October 9) and his team about the budget. He said he was committed to trying to keep within a budget. “However, I would like the community members to know that there are things that are out of our control. We are putting in place checks and balances to ensure, to the best of our ability, that we do not go over the mayor’s proposed 2027 budget.”

At the end of that meeting, the City Council said it wants to meet with law enforcement at least once more. No official meeting time has been set. Frey and the City Council must settle a budget by the end of the year.

Fox encourages Minneapolis constituents to educate themselves and reach out to their council members, whether by email, phone, or in-person, and let them know what they expect their council member to focus on while representing them at city hall.

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